© Iletisim, 2003 Sevgi Soysal and his work:
literature reveals military coercion in the state modern Turkey in the 1970s
by Sinem Meral
Deportate, spurge, profughe , No. 12, January 2010
Summary: After a brief presentation of the writer Sevgi Soysal, the article relies on three of his novels: An Afternoon at Yenişehir , Prison Cell for Women and Dawn . The first piece describes the identity crisis of three different personalities and the effects of the political situation of the 70s. The second recreates the living conditions in prisons for women and the third focuses on abuse, Following their release, in respect of ex-prisoners left. The study refers constantly to the analysis of Giorgio Agamben on the authoritarian state and the tools used by the latter to control the company.
Background
Turkey has a broad and extensive experience in government coercion and coups in its political history. There were two coups "successful", one in 1960 and another in 1980, and two "half-coup" in 1971 and 1998. All these interruptions undemocratic governance had a military face and, surprisingly, were legal. And this, for saying "defend the state against any attempt at revolution," "prevent any attempt to change the legal order of the Republic of Turkey" or "safeguard the constitutional order of the state." Legally, the Turkish army put on this type of liability from the coup of 1980, but even before that date, the Turkish civil and democratic life was impacted greatly and irreversibly by the declaration of the army, 12 March 1971. This statement led to stable political balance of the modern Turkish state: the power of the military weighed against the civilian political authority.
Living in a country where state authority imposes unjustifiable and arbitrary management presents its "necessary in times of emergency in the state of law and democratic modern" inevitably affects every citizen, first and foremost a writer . Writers are generally regarded as "witnesses of their time." This refers to their major responsibility: to inform each of the shameful truths in society.
Sevgi Soysal is one of these brave intellectuals to have lived in the Republic of Turkey from 1936 to 1976. This writer, who died so prematurely and had to leave so early contribution to the Turkish language, was born into a bourgeois family in Istanbul. Having a German mother probably influenced his thinking. She finally realized that being different in appearance, his way of thinking or its origin was not a source of shame, but a valuable resource not only for the person concerned but for society as a whole. Sevgi Soysal studied philosophy and drama in Germany and then, once graduated, returned to Turkey. Her writing career began with several original stories published in local magazines or national. She dealt mainly with conflicts of identity, sexuality and social insecurity, social oppression and ordinary urban life. In these novels and stories, political movements in Turkey which are not included in the background or as a central issue. The writer was not insensitive to the political chaos which was the country but did not really get involved either. A dramatic change intervened in his writing just after the half-coup, which occurred March 12, 1971. She was imprisoned for some eleven months in Mamak Military Prison in Ankara, where she completed his most important works: A Afternoon Yenişehir and Dawn . His memories held have also been published in a book entitled Women's Prison Cell. After this experience, Sevgi Soysal realized much better state repression that was rampant in prisons. She lived as an "accused of crimes of opinion" with political prisoners, attending all kinds of torture, rape, humiliation, oppression and psychological brutality. She continued to write until his tragic death.
Analysis of the State of emergency
To enter more deeply into the works by Sevgi Soysal, I propose to follow the thought process of Giorgio Agamben, who in his book State Exception , outlines the views of two of the most important thinkers of the last century, Carl Schmitt and Walter Benjamin. For Schmitt, the "state of exception" is a period during which the government has the right to suspend the act to stabilize the balance sought by the state. During these periods, fundamental rights of citizens can be reduced and the state can justify officially illegal acts, like torture after arrest or detention without trial, declared a state of emergency and stating that the State is obliged to preserve the Republican agenda. Agamben quote: "In each case, the state of exception marks a threshold where practical and logical tangle where violence and pure, devoid of logos, expressed no real frame of reference. "(Agamben, ed. 2005, p. 40)
In the world of Schmitt, the state or its representatives as the military or administrative proceedings (whether political power or not legitimized through legal and fair elections), has the right 'establish exceptions to the law in an emergency. Actions totally "illegal" (ie contrary to what is written in the Constitution or country code), but nonetheless "legitimate" businesses may well be imposing in a way their own law. This is one of the most important points established by Agamben: a situation Emergency includes rules and logic specific, implemented by the sole raison d'etat ".
Benjamin, meanwhile, approach a state of emergency a legal point of view, describing it as a process in which the court waives its adherence to the law. It underlines the fact that the state of exception does not protect the right or do not create new law, but suspend to meet the "pure violence." Pure violence comes from the soul society and it is this rage that causes political revolts and revolutions. In Briefly, Benjamin tries to always connect to a state of emergency "illegal actions", while Schmitt tries to make it look legal by making a link between legal and state of emergency.
The position of the army is one of the key issues in the political history of Turkey. Since the early 20th century, the Turkish military is proactive in the political life and works tirelessly to preserve the country from all enemies internal or external potential. Explain in detail the reasons go beyond the limitations of this article, but to summarize, the traditional mentality is passed from one generation to the next military. The preservation of the Republic of Turkey and the Turkish Constitution is the primary task of the army. Once social change begins to threaten the political order of the state, the army intervenes blindly, both in law and in civil society. For example, because of coups, the Assembly of Turkey was repeatedly suspended. In addition, measures curfew deprived the people of their fundamental rights. According to the theory of Schmitt, the Turkish military justified this interventions through law and legislation (mainly orders or regulations) as the "Law on the domestic service" and "Rules of the Turkish Armed Forces", where the preservation of the country is clearly presented as the responsibility of the Turkish army.
should analyze what the Turkish people showed during the 1970s from the perspective of the two main groups: the army (or state) and victims (the population). The reasons for the state are mostly expressed by Schmitt, while Benjamin takes into account the views victims. Sevgi Soysal critically unceasingly the standpoint of Schmitt, while defending a compelling humanitarian approach of Benjamin. Sevgi Soysal knowing that is a writer, you can expect it to be impartial with regard to evoke that era as such. One must also take into account that Sevgi Soysal spent six months in prison for women in Adana as a political prisoner, without being accused of any crime, before proposing a literary approach to his work.
An Afternoon Yenişehir
Let's leave now Agamben's analysis and its sources in Schmitt and Benjamin. We can find a striking picture of the state of emergency in A Afternoon Yenişehir . This is a novel in which representatives of every social and economic class are presented. It does more than give us a knowledge of passing that period and into the heart of the company then. His characters have a hawker and his girlfriend after the underclass, a housewife from the middle class and a university professor of the upper class, finding all the way to express themselves in the novel. The relationship between the main characters, Olcay, Ali Dogan, have a clear political tone. Ali is an enthusiastic young Communist, emerged from the working class, and then qu'Olcay Dogan, brother and sister, have socialist tendencies, but belong to the Turkish bourgeoisie. The history of these three characters is linked to the collapse of an old poplar, which turns out to be the strongest image of the novel. The thing is still debated among critics Turkish, but in my opinion, the old poplar symbolizes the end of the age of innocence and the call to violence. To use the definition of Benjamin, pure violence, from the company, aims to change the legal order. The growing danger of rotting tree anticipates developing the social group is going to revolt. In Turkey, after 1971 there was an armed revolt against the old order of national revolutions happened in parallel with other countries around the world. At the end of the book, the tree collapses finally a man from the lower class, whose labor is exploited by the wealthy. This purpose appears to have been chosen by Sevgi Soysal to symbolize the economic and political violence caused by the capitalist order.
Dawn
The psychology of political prisoner is revealed in depth in Dawn, which was published in 1975. There is also a novel of the post-1971, but focusing more on political and legal order of the Turkish state and on its policy and strategy of oppression. The main character, Oya, is an artist left Istanbul, exiled in Adana, a city in eastern Turkey. There, she should go to the police station every day to give his signature, and is under constant police surveillance. Dawn is one of the few novels in Turkish literature, where instruments Schmittian state (or military) are demonstrating their wider use in a system of emergency rule. The second man, Mustafa, was a former convict, who just regained his freedom. He experienced the violent conditions of state prisons. Oya and her memories of detained again occupy center stage when the local police was suddenly burst into the home of Mustafa. Sevgi Soysal refers primarily to the psychology of Oya and Mustafa, who spend the night in custody, terrorized the idea of being tortured again, with their shattered dreams of freedom. This tension has a profound and Mustafa Oya, encouraging them to examine their consciences. The scene of the police raid, depicted in a particularly realistic in the book, brings the characters to question concepts such as punishment and the crime. At the police in Adana, Oya constantly asking the police chief if the investigation and collection of evidence will be implemented within the framework of the law, but she never gets a clear answer. Police officers humiliate Oya because it is communist and wife. Oya dreams to torture, while walking toward the room where she must spend the night in custody:
"Abdullah, an officer walking beside her. The poor expression of his face the more frightening as before. "What can I do? Hit me or insult me, at most. He is unable to engage in systematic torture and science which I have heard such horrible stories. "Being hit by Abdullah now seems ridiculous to Oya perspective and even cheerful as she compares this to what kind of torture ... Hands and toes connected to cables electric, heart pounding, ready to explode, to be held criminally and deliberately away from the death which she longs, forced to lose her humanity and femininity in the middle of a lake of blood and vomit having ever feel down, down. Then the baton, which handles the task the vilest of the male organ ... "(Soysal, eds. 2002, p. 90. Trad. Sinem Meral by English)
Prison Cell for Women
's latest book, Cell women's prison, is a book testimony, disclosure, not romance, but rather a collection of memories of detention. Note that the use of language by Sevgi Soysal at the beginning and the end is very different. The reason is that she had experienced before and after the prison on March 12 [1971], the systematic use of torture began after that date. Each passage lays bare how hard it was to be a political prisoner immediately after 12 March. The reader is informed of the physical and psychological oppression, the various techniques of torture and rape in police custody. The staff of the army created the concept of "prisoner of soldiers "were victims and automatically under the military chain of command. Horrific events took place during this period, as the execution of Gezmis Deniz, Yusuf Arslan and Hüseyin Inan, three leftist leaders very important, and the hijacking of a Turkish Airlines plane. As if one blasting the company, which shook with the help of pure violence, described by Benjamin. According to him, the lawlessness of the state can not be justified; Soysal's works should be read as tangible evidence of this resistance. For example:
"You get used to almost anything, but not that torture victims arriving in prison told us, even if the story was always the same. Searched people were arrested during police raids, their eyes blindfolded, and they were unceremoniously taken away. Once in the torture room, the person was laid bare and dressed in pajamas bloody and dirty. Meanwhile, the officers, who called themselves the "My Staff", "Mon Colonel", etc.., Watered obscenities victims, like "Damn." And commenting on the physical characteristics of the victim. Then the electricity was put to good, followed by gallons of water, beating, walking in water, feet swollen from the beating stick. After that, new electricity and all sorts of insults like "Fuck," "Son of a bitch", etc.. And finally, the rape with a truncheon. "(Soysal, eds. 2003, p. 95. Trad. Sinem Meral by English)
major writer of Turkish literature, Sevgi Soysal not only enriches our darkest history, but also presents our contemporary times. His novels remind us that the state is always prepared to reduce our democratic gains and to react against every movement that attempts to change the current political balance within the state organization. Whoever holds power will never be ready to abandon its own. As we will not look across this shameful history, Turkey will continue to live under the logic state of emergency and we have little hope for the future.
Bibliography
Agamben Giorgio Istisna Ali [State of emergency], trans. Kemal Atakay, Editions Otonom (Turkey), 2005 (in Turkish).
Agamben Giorgio Beyond Human Rights, trans. Cesare Casarino, in Radical Thought in Italy , ed. Virno Paolo and Michael Hardt, University of Minnesota Press, 1996; Means Without End / Notes on Politics, trans. Vincenzo Binetti and Cesare Casarino, University of Minnesota Press, 2000.
GULENDAN Ramazan, "and Desired Characteristics of Women Portrayed in Modern Turkish Literature: 1960-1980", Social Science Magazine (Turkey), 2000.
SOYSAL Sevgi, Yenişehir'de Bir Ogle Vakti [Un Après-midi à Larissa], Contact Editions (Turquie), 2002.
SOYSAL Love, Dawn [L'Aube], Contact Editions (Turquie), 2002.
SOYSAL Love, Light Regional Women's Ward [Prison pour femmes], Contact Editions, Turquie, 2003. SUPREME
Sefa, "Love Soysal narrations» [Sevgi Soysal romancière], International Journal of Social Work / Social Research, The Journal of International , vol. 1 / 2 (Turquie), Winter 2008.
[Researcher independent Sinem Meral lives in Izmir, Turkey. It deals primarily with issues of identity, sexual identity conflicts and legal concepts in an interdisciplinary approach, while translating the English and French literature in Turkish. She is currently interested in comparative literature and interdisciplinary. Her stories and essays have been published in several magazines and newspapers in Turkey.]
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Source: http://www.unive.it/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=71770
English Translation: © George Festa - 02.2011
Courtesy of Bruna Bianchi (Università Ca 'Foscari, Venice) and Sinem Meral.
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